Term 1, Week 4

Important Dates

Principal's Message: Mrs Angela Muller

Celebrating our Student Leaders

At our school, we believe every child has the potential to be a leader! When students take on leadership roles—whether as classroom helpers, our voice representatives, or peer buddies—they learn important life skills like responsibility, teamwork, and problem-solving. Leadership isn’t just about having a title; it’s about setting a great example, helping others, and making a positive impact on our school community. We love seeing our students grow in confidence and take pride in making our school a better place!

Last week our Captains received their badges at our Welcome Mass. I look forward to working with them as we collaborate and grow throughout the year. I thank Mrs Cath Connor for her leadership of our Opening Mass. It was a wonderful celebration of our school community.

The importance of having-a-go, celebrating others and doing your best!

Our new Kindergarten students have had a wonderful start to school, settling in beautifully and eagerly engaging in their learning and play. It has been heartwarming to see their confidence grow each day as they explore their new environment and build friendships. Our Kinder Teaching Team has done a fabulous job at supporting our newest learners. A huge thank you to our amazing Year 5 buddies, who have been so kind and supportive, helping our youngest learners feel safe, welcomed, and valued. We are so proud to see these special friendships forming and warmly welcome our newest students to the Assumption family!

Wishing you all a fantastic Term 1 filled with learning, friendship, and success.

Yours in Education
Angela

Leadership Insights: Mr Matthew Gibson

Student Leaders 

Over the past two weeks our student leaders have received their badges and have demonstrated just why they were selected to represent their peers this year. Across our school year there are many opportunities for our School Captains and our Sport Captains to model participation, lead by example and teach our other students of the high expectations we have at Assumption. Our School leaders for 2025 are: 

Clancy House: McLeod and Hannah 

Keogh House: Eliza and Oliver 

Clayton House: Alex and Mina 

English House: Max and Amelia 

Dibels Assessments 

Over the past two weeks, every student at Assumption has undertaken their Dibels Reading Assessment. These assessments provide teachers with valuable insight into: 

• Letter name fluency
• Phonemic awareness
• Phonic knowledge
• Reading fluency 

These assessments take place three times a year as a benchmark for student reading. You can help at home by practicing letters and sounds from Kindergarten and encouraging daily oral reading in later years. Reading is a crucial skill for all students to be able to access other areas of our curriculum. 

School Photos 

A reminder that our school photos are on this Friday, please ensure that all students are dressed in the correct Full Summer Uniform on Friday.

If you still need to place an order for your child's school photos, please do so here.

NAPLAN 2025

NAPLAN

Last week a parent information letter and brochure was sent out regarding NAPLAN 2025. The NAPLAN window begins in Week 6 on Wednesday 12th March. Students have been well prepared throughout the previous years of schooling and teachers of current Year 3 and 5 students are ensuring that students are familiar with the testing platform. NAPLAN is a fantastic opportunity for us as a school to look at year-level and individual data to plan for the future learning of our students. If you have any questions regarding the administration of NAPLAN in 2025, please contact Mr Matthew Gibson through the front office. 

Tips for NAPLAN

1. Talk to your children positively about NAPLAN assessments.
2. Encourage your child to simply give their best effort.
3. Celebrate their success during learning, particularly leading up to NAPLAN.
4. Don’t over prepare for the assessments.

REC News: Mrs Catherine Connor

Sunday, 2nd March 2025:

Eighth Sunday Ordinary Time - Year C

Luke 6: 39-45 – A person speaks from what is in the heart.

Gospel Reflection

In this week’s Gospel Jesus tells a parable (a story used to teach a moral or spiritual lesson) about how our actions come from the heart. The person who is good will do good deeds, the evil person will do evil things. One cannot be evil in his or her heart and live a life of goodness. If we have good hearts we will do good things but if we have bad hearts we will do bad things. He also tells us that we should not criticise other people unless we ourselves are perfect.

We can never convince people or God that we are something we are not. God always gives us more chances. If we tell God we're sorry he will forgive us and help us to try harder next time.

Gospel Challenge

Behave as Jesus taught us: treat others the way you want to be treated, try hard to be kind and caring to others, and always stay in touch with Jesus.

Prayer

Jesus, fill our hearts with your love so that we can carry on the good works you want us to do for others.

Opening and Welcoming Mass

The Opening and Welcome Mass for 2025 was a beautiful experience for all. Thank you Fr Karl Sinclair for helping us celebrate such a wonderful Mass.

Sacraments Meeting - Penance, Eucharist and Confirmation

A Parent information evening will be held this Thursday, 27th February in the Cathedral Parish Centre, Keppel Street, Bathurst at 6:30 PM where all parents of children either receiving the    - 

• Sacrament of Penance,
• making their First Communion (Sacrament of the Eucharist) or 
• being Confirmed (Sacrament of Confirmation) 

across the school are expected to attend to help understand these Sacraments and how they will be administered in the Parish of St Michael’s and St John’s in 2025.

This is an important meeting where all the parents who want their child to receive one of these Sacraments need to attend. 

Junior Joeys 2025 fundraising - Pancakes and Ice cream

With the support of Mrs Lisa Lynch and myself, the Assumption School is working with students from Years 3 to 6 as people of Hope and help for others. The Junior Joeys will work for social Justice in many areas throughout the year and their first fund raising event to support Project Compassion and Caritas will be next Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday) the day before Ash Wednesday where they will be offering Pancakes and ice cream for a gold coin donation. This is an exciting opportunity to show your support for our Junior Joeys and support a worthy cause.

Ash Wednesday

Ashes will be traced on the forehead of every child on Wednesday, 5th March which will be Ash Wednesday signifying the start of Lent  - a season in the Church year where we prepare ourselves for Easter.

Years 3, 4, 5, 6 will celebrate an Ash Wednesday Mass at 9:15 AM in the Assumption School Hall.

Kindergarten, Year 1 and 2 will be participating in an Ash Wednesday Liturgy prepared by Kindergarten at 10:30 AM in the School Hall.

Everyone is welcome to join us at the Mass or the Liturgy to receive the ashes on their foreheads to signify the start of Lent and our call to prepare for Easter.

To keep connected to the Cathedral Parish please follow the link to the Cathedral Parish Bulletin.

Learning: Ms Melanie Kelley

A world of possibilities K - 2 Students

Ideas to help your child practise their numeracy skills - with you, and online

The curriculum sets the goal for what all students should learn as they progress through their school life. Skills in the curriculum include:

• recognising that some events might or might not happen
• thinking of alternative possibilities
• recalling experiences to help make judgements about possible events.

It’s easy to help your child practise these skills as part of everyday life – just use these simple ideas.

Talk about it

Mastering possibility, probability and prediction takes a lot of practice. You can help your child with everyday conversations, as well as games and activities. For example:

• ask your child to make predictions about common things
  The sky is sunny this morning, do you think it's going to rain?
• talk about possibilities, using words such as might, may, maybe
  We might pick mummy up from work today.
  Maybe we’ll see some ducks at the park.
• ask your child what might happen in a given situation, and encourage them to come up with different possibilities (crazy ideas are more fun!)
  Q: What do you think the dentist will say when she checks your teeth?
  A: She might say I’ve been doing a good job, or she might say I need to brush better, or she might tell me to eat more chocolate cake!
• play games that use dice or spinners and talk about chance
  You need a four to win, can you roll it?
  Is it easier to roll a two or a five? 
• when reading storybooks together, pause sometimes and ask your child to make predictions about the story.
  What do you think will happen next?
  What else might happen?

For more ideas visit: https://www.learningpotential.gov.au/

The Sports Arena: Mrs Alison Hanley

Swimming Carnival 

Our 2025 school swimming carnival was held on Monday 24th February under perfect conditions. The weather certainly made the competitors enjoy that dive into the pool! The carnival had a terrific atmosphere and the races were swum with great effort and sportsmanship.

We would like to thank all the wonderful parent helpers and teachers for making the day run so smoothly. We would also like to thank the Yr 10 students that came from St Stanislaus College. Congratulations to Amelia who broke the only record of the day in the 50m Fly. The old record was set in 2022 by Natalie (38.17s) and Amelia’s time was 35.78s. All other results are listed below and we have 37 great swimmers competing at the Eastern Region Carnival on Monday 3rd March at the Bathurst Aquatic Centre.

All the details for this carnival are on the Compass event. The top three swimmers in each event from this carnival will progress to the Diocesan Carnival which will be held on 11th March in Dubbo. We wish our swimmers all the best in their efforts.

AFL Trials - Diocesan Selection

On Monday 7th March, McLeod and Harry will attend the Diocesan AFL trials in Bathurst. We wish them all the best as they compete against other students from our Diocese for a spot in the team. 

AFL- Sport for Stage 3 - Change of Day

Our wonderful instructors for AFL are holding their last session for our Yr 5 and 6 students this week. We have enjoyed the games and skills they have taught us and really feel that we have shown great improvement in the sport of Australian Rules Football. Due to the clash with school photos on Friday 28th February our sports session will be held on Thursday 27th February and therefore all Yr 5 and 6 students will need to wear their sports uniforms on Thursday instead of Friday. 

Bathurst Diocesan Winter Sports Trials

The Winter Sports Trials will be held on Friday 28th March in Bathurst for the Sports of Rugby League (11yr/12yr), Netball, Soccer and Hockey. 

To be able to nominate for our school trials, students must currently play their chosen sport on a regular basis. These trials are of a very high standard and it is advised that only students who are at a representative level outside a regular team trial. Our school can only send 5 students to each of the Diocesan trials. 

We have had expressions of interest from many students and some sports will require school trials to choose our 5 representatives.

Student Wellbeing: Mrs Sonia Peck

Encouraging Physical Activity and Fitness

Physical activity is essential for the overall wellbeing of our students. Regular exercise not only improves physical health but also boosts mood, concentration, and academic performance.

Daily Physical Activity: Our school incorporates physical activities into our daily routine. From morning exercises to active recess and physical education classes, we ensure that students get plenty of opportunities to move.

After-School Sports: Bathurst offers a variety of after-school sports programs, including soccer, basketball, and dance. These programs help students develop teamwork skills, build friendships, and help our young people stay active.

Active Lifestyles at Home: We encourage parents to promote an active lifestyle at home. Activities such as family walks, bike rides, or even a game of catch can make a big difference. Limiting screen time and encouraging outdoor play are also beneficial.

Together, we can help our students develop healthy habits that will last a lifetime.

Best regards,

Sonia Peck
Leader of Student Wellbeing